Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York, US, Sept. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The Palestinian Authority (PA) denounced Hamas for what it called “contacts with foreign parties,” seemingly referring to the terrorist group’s recent direct negotiations with the United States on the possibility of releasing US hostages being held in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Hamas for opening communication with foreign parties, accusing the terrorist group of “dividing the Palestinian national position” and breaking laws against such contacts, the official PA news agency Wafa reported.

“Opening channels of communication with foreign parties and conducting negotiations with them without a national mandate is a violation of the Palestinian law that criminalizes communicating with foreign parties,” Rudeineh said in a statement.

He also said the talks undermine ongoing discussions for post-war rebuilding efforts – particularly the Egyptian-Palestinian plan for Gaza’s reconstruction outlined in the emergency summit in Cairo earlier this month – and weaken efforts to prevent “the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland.”

The presidential spokesman urged Hamas to transfer control of the Gaza Strip to the PA, aiming to reunite Gaza and the West Bank “under the rule of a single national authority, a single law, a single weapon, and a single legitimate political representation.”

The PA, a rival of Hamas, has sought to publicly distance itself from the terrorist group while also engaging in Palestinian reconciliation talks. However, PA officials have been regularly rationalizing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and in some cases even denying it took place or falsely claiming Israeli forces carried out the onslaught that started the Gaza war.

In a separate statement this week, Abbas’s ruling Fatah Party accused Hamas of “only representing itself and Iran, as one of its agents in the region.”

Iran has backed Hamas for years, providing the terrorist group with weapons, funding, and training.

“Those who accepted the description of ‘nice’ from the American envoy [Adam Boehler] after offering concessions do not represent our people,” Fatah said.

“Statements made by Hamas leaders who fled Gaza and are living in luxurious hotels in Qatar reveal the extent of Hamas’s involvement in these conspiracies and schemes that target our people and their just national cause.”

Last year, Fatah, the main Palestinian faction in the West Bank and the movement that controls the PA, lambasted Iran for meddling in internal Palestinian affairs, accusing the Iranian regime of spreading chaos in its territory.

Over the past few weeks, meetings between Hamas leaders and US hostage envoy Adam Boehler have been reported, focusing on the possibility of releasing US hostages being held in Gaza.

“The reason that I met Hamas is because I want to work to help to get Americans and Israelis out,” Boehler said during an interview with Israel’s Kan News.

He also explained that he wanted to understand the terrorist organization’s demands for ending the Gaza war. “Some of the things that they talked about were relatively reasonable and workable things,” he said.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the talks with Hamas were a rare and isolated event, and they have not yet produced any results.

“That was a one-off situation in which our special envoy for hostages, whose job it is to get people released, had an opportunity to talk directly to someone who has control over these people and was given permission and encouraged to do so,” Rubio said.

This week, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Qatar, which hosts several Hamas leaders, to join an Israeli delegation for talks with Hamas about extending the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.

While Israel hopes the US will push forward a plan for a two-month truce extension, starting with the release of about half of the living hostages, Hamas has so far rejected the plan, insisting on immediate talks about the second phase of the ceasefire, which would end the war and lead to a full Israeli troop withdrawal.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

Earlier this year, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.

The first phase, which ended on March 1, saw Hamas release 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight others – in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel – as well as five living Thai hostages.

Most Arab states have rejected Trump’s plan to “take over” Gaza to rebuild the war-torn enclave, while relocating Palestinians elsewhere during reconstruction efforts.

Trump has called on Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states to take in Palestinians from Gaza after about 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

Middle Eastern leaders, expected to bear much of the financial burden of rebuilding Gaza, have struggled to propose their own plan but insist on a role for the Palestinian Authority, while also advocating for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.